There is something irresistible about the urge to break the rules, to smash everything in sight just to see it break and then dance exultant on the shThere is something irresistible about the urge to break the rules, to smash everything in sight just to see it break and then dance exultant on the shards. It is built into us on the most basic level, maybe as the result of natural selection. Game theory teaches us that while cooperation is the best long-term solution, you have to cheat now and then to get to the optimal outcome. All of these primal urges are embodied in the character of the trickster. The Greeks gave us Hermes, Prometheus and Odysseus; the Norse gave us Loki; Native Americans gave us Coyote and Raven; Africa gave us Eshu and Brer Rabbit; China gave us the Monkey King; and India gave us Krishna. It seems that the character is universal. Mr. Hyde cautions us that we need to be careful in projecting the trickster persona onto real people, but he sees key elements of the trickster in transgressive artists such as Picasso, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp and Robert Maplethorpe. He's right on both counts. The trickster is there and not there at the same time, which is another one of his defining features. We find the trickster again in the literary archetype of the picaro, and in the "carnivalized" literature discussed by Mikhail Bakhtin. The trickster also appears in the business world. Mr. Hyde sees elements of the trickster in the rise of the merchant class in Athens that helped to give birth to Athenian democracy. There is much of the trickster in the culture of the tech world. This book predates Facebook, but "Move fast and break things" is certainly an archetypal trickster mantra. And then of course, also after this book, is the leading trickster of our times - Donald Trump. His lying and stealing are a fundamental part of his trickster persona; if he didn't constantly lie and steal he would not fit his archetype. The MAGA promise of a vague better world coming out the other side once society has been stood on its head is also a key part of the package. It does not make me want to vote for him, but it makes it easier for me to see how others are attracted to him.
A fundamental part of Mr. Hyde's thesis is that the trickster is required for the creation of the world as we know it. There is no progress without creative destruction. Whether the trickster is coopted into the mundane world or destroys it or just continues to harass and bedevil us from the fringes, he makes change and progress possible and his values, for better or worse, become part of mainstream values. That doesn't mean that we should all go over to the dark side, but it does mean that we need to recognize that the trickster is in all of us, and sometimes that part of us becomes the driving force in our choices....more
I'm drawn to the idea of minimalism and the idea of living a simple life. Less is not always more, but it often is. And as Mr. Chayka points out, miniI'm drawn to the idea of minimalism and the idea of living a simple life. Less is not always more, but it often is. And as Mr. Chayka points out, minimalism is like any other cultural phenomenon in sometimes being popularized and commoditized in ways that suck the heart out of it. I was hoping in this book to get a stronger sense of the history and philosophical thinking behind minimalism as it is expressed in design, art, music and living. There's a bit of that, but it's mostly about Mr. Chayka's personal experience of minimalism in these areas. If the thoughts and feelings that he describes had harmonized with my own, I might have found his personal experiences deeply satisfying. Or if they had been different from me in a way that gave me a fresh perspective, that might have been even better. Sadly, it did neither. I wasn't satisfied intellectually, emotionally or aesthetically by Mr. Chayka's approach....more
On my first date with my wife many many years ago we went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, and I vividly remember seeing my first BottOn my first date with my wife many many years ago we went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, and I vividly remember seeing my first Botticelli there. The colors were stunning and the faces of the people were so much more human that I remember in other paintings from the same era. As Mr. Luzzi relates in one of his own experiences at the end of the book, seeing the actual painting makes a lasting impression that no reproduction could manage. I think that this is more true of Botticelli than of a lot of other artists. I have been a Botticelli fan ever since. It helps that I associate Botticelli's work with falling in love.
Before picking up this book, I had not known of Botticelli's illustrations of the Divine Comedy. It was interesting to learn about their creation and subsequent history. But most of this book is a rehash of the history of the art world in Renaissance Florence, which is already known to almost anyone with more than a passing interest in Renaissance art. You would pick up most of this on a short art visit to Florence supplemented by a little Wikipedia reading and then you would get to see an amazing amount of great art at the same time. So though this book had some nice tidbits and was an engaging read, it isn't great. You can get a better taste of Rennaissance Florence through Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo or from my favorite novel of Renaissance Italy George Eliot's Romola....more
Ms. Cumming combines a personal memoir of growing up with her artist father with a history of Dutch Golden Age art focusing on the life and work of CaMs. Cumming combines a personal memoir of growing up with her artist father with a history of Dutch Golden Age art focusing on the life and work of Carel Fabritius and the massive explosion of a gunpowder magazine in Delft that killed him and levelled a large part of the town. But not much is known about the short life of Fabritius, for whom we have only a few surviving works. His work may be interesting, innovative and promising but there's hardly enough there to fill a book for a popular audience. And there is not so much to be said about the explosion. So most of the book is focused on the author's personal story and the stories of lesser known Dutch Golden Age artists, largely staying away from the two most famous ones, Rembrandt and Vermeer. It was interesting but I didn't feel a strong organic connection between the different pieces. I think that I would have gotten more out of a book of straight art history about the Dutch Golden Age.
In addition to being introduced to a few painters whose names and works I had not known, I learned some interesting things about the Dutch Golden Age. First, though I have certainly walked through multiple galleries dedicated to Dutch art in a number of museums, I did not previously appreciate the exponential growth of the Dutch art world during a brief span of around 50 years in the 1600s. Talent, fashion, and the growth of the mercantile class came together to create massive growth with thousands of artists producing hundreds of thousands of paintings, many of them quite good. Second, I have, like most people, generally thought of the art from this period as being highly realistic, almost photographic, but Ms. Cumming explains how this view is mistaken, focusing on Fabritius' well known "View of Delft," which has obvious non-realist elements that create a sense of three dimensions and a sense of both scope and intimacy in the way that foreground and background elements are combined. But it's a bigger point. Many of the Golden Age artists produced works of scenes that could not exist in the real world because they wanted to create an effect that would not have been possible with only realistic elements. I will definitely look for this the next time I stroll through the Dutch galleries of a museum....more
A few months ago I read a book called "From Strength to Strength" about how the brain changes with age so that though we don't become dumber, the kindA few months ago I read a book called "From Strength to Strength" about how the brain changes with age so that though we don't become dumber, the kinds of things that we are good at change. Therefore, in order to flourish as we age, we need to let go of our old ways and play to the strengths of maturity. Our minds change from an innovating, driving, problem solving form of intelligence, to a different form where innovation and brute force solutions no longer come so easily but in which connection, community, communication and teaching skills grow stronger. Not everyone is able to make this transition, but those who do can continue to do fulfilling work long into old age.
In this book Mr. Lacayo gives us profiles of six great artists - Titian, Goya, Monet, Matisse, Hopper and Nevelson who produced great work in their later years, and in each case he shows how their mature work differed from what they did earlier in ways that seem to correspond to the brain changes noted above. So in each case the later work seems to move away from tight, controlled style to something that is looser and less realistic. Brush strokes become broader, perspective begins to defy conventional rules and details disappear. In Monet's case, Mr. Lacayo calls it a "deep dive into a zero gravity environment." It can't have been easy for them to make this transition, particularly when they had to simultaneously cope with growing physical infirmities, but still it has to be easier for an artist to do this than for a mathematician or engineer, for whom moving to a communitarian approach to their profession is fundamentally giving up what they do in order to do something that, though valuable and related, is entirely different.
There is definitely a lesson for all of us here in finding ways to continue to pratice our crafts and to be of service to others in the things that we do best as we age....more
Wow. This was good. Mr. Rubin provides a ton of very practical advice and encouragement to artists about how to create. And he starts from the premiseWow. This was good. Mr. Rubin provides a ton of very practical advice and encouragement to artists about how to create. And he starts from the premise that we are all artists, so even if you are not a painter, a musician or a writer, if you can find the art in other things that you do, this book will be valuable to you. I try to treat my work as a lawyer as form of art, and when viewed in that light, much of Mr. Rubin's suggestions become relevant to my work. Beyond that, nearly all of us who are not professional artists pursue some form of art in our spare time, and even if we don't, this book gives insight into how the different forms of art that we love are created. It's also useful for those of us who work with artists professionally because it will make us more effective in our work to understand their process better.
What's the best way to find the germ of an idea for an artistic project? How do you get started? When should you take a break and when should you work through? What's the best way to handle the process of revising and improving? How do you work with a collaborator? And how do you decide when it's time to declare a work complete? It's all in this book. Of course every work and every artist are different, but there are a lot of commonalities. And though reasonable people can disagree about some of this, I found 95% of Mr. Rubin's suggestions to be spot on....more
Andy Warhol was the human incarnation of Duchamp's urinal -- A white artistic statement useful only for excretion with a message that anything can be Andy Warhol was the human incarnation of Duchamp's urinal -- A white artistic statement useful only for excretion with a message that anything can be art and everything is nothing. The problem with this is that it only works for five minutes and then you are done with it. Duchamp did a lot of other cool stuff. Warhol didn't. He was a one trick pony. This book goes on for a few hundred pages with more of the same. To be fair to Andy, it must have been hard to sustain a pose of nothingness for an entire lifetime, but he was obsessed with looking at his own blank reflection in other people, which is why he needed an army of B's to continually allow him to bask in the greatness of A. He loved celebrities because most of them were almost as blank as he was, though almost no one else achieved his pinnacle of nothingness. He was constantly bored. No wonder. I would have been bored too. He fetishized money and made tons of it, but he wasn't really greedy, liking more what it stood for than having it for its own sake or for spending except insofar as spending was a statement.
It was all too much for me. I can see that there was something there, but I'm just not that interested. There is so much more to life than this nonsense....more
Mr. Perl has a decent point that art of all kinds inherently sits on the border between authority and freedom. It has to have some kind of structure aMr. Perl has a decent point that art of all kinds inherently sits on the border between authority and freedom. It has to have some kind of structure and dwell in some sort of cultural context to make any sense. That's the authority part. It also has to dare to break at least a few of the rules and go at least a short way outside of the box to be interesting and worthy of being considered art. That's the freedom part, but if it goes too far, if it exhibits too much freedom, it loses audience and becomes harder for us to relate to it. The best parties are the ones where there are some old friends, but also some new people, and so it is with a good book or painting or piece of music.
But Mr. Perl unfortunately flogs this one point again and again. Long after the horse is dead, he continues to beat it. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem in a book this short, but it could have been half as long or less without losing anything.
My other gripe is Mr. Perl's discussion of the question of art serving society. He quotes Trotsky as saying that art cannot be removed from its social context, but he rejects the Trotskyite perspective and goes on say that art must only be judged on the basis of artistic criteria, not its role in social issues. But that's just wrong. And it's inconsistent with Mr. Perl's main point about how good art sits on the edge between authority and freedom. There's a social aspect of that dichotomy that Mr. Perl completely misses - Trotsky had it more right than Perl. The contrast between authority and freedom in social matters is expressed in art just as much as it is expressed in choices about form and structure. Of course there is bad art that may be famous and influential for social reasons but that fails as art - "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and Chernyshevsky's "What is to be Done" come to mind, but it doesn't have to be that way. Ai Wei Wei, who is a terrific artist, whose works are beautiful, daring, moving and artistically original, are also deeply connected to social issues, so that he says in his memoir that his, art and his activism are part of a seamless whole that cannot be understood or even exist in isolation from one another....more
The first part of this book about Ai Weiwei's childhood is a rather standard memoir of the travails suffered by intellectuals and artists in China undThe first part of this book about Ai Weiwei's childhood is a rather standard memoir of the travails suffered by intellectuals and artists in China under the communists. Of course it wasn't just the Cultural Revolution. The party's control over art and culture and its oppression of people who didn't toe the line started much earlier as Mr. Ai's telling of his family's story makes clear, and it continues today. I was worried that this was all that the book would be, but it gets much better as Mr. Ai grows up, goes to America and begins to find his path as an artist.
I have always enjoyed Mr. Ai's art. I was particularly moved by his piece constructed of thousands ceramic sunflower seeds. Now I have a deeper appreciation, having learned more about who he is as an artist. As Mr. Ai explains here, his art is an expression of his attitude, identity and activism. There is no border between them, no defining place where one ends and the other begins. It's not just that they are blended together. For Mr. Ai, art, attitude, identity and activism are all expressions of the same thing. Other artists have articulated similar theories, but Mr. Ai walks the walk. With this point of view, there really cannot be a debate about whether art should be for art's sake or to serve a social purpose. That's the wrong question to ask. It does both and neither, whether you like it or not....more
My wonderful daughter, Tracey, gave me this book because she knew that it would make me smile.
It's a coffee table book of beautiful black and white piMy wonderful daughter, Tracey, gave me this book because she knew that it would make me smile.
It's a coffee table book of beautiful black and white pictures of chickens with each accompanied by an appropriate literary quote that fits with the particular chicken picture. Some of them are just perfect, like the Dracula chicken and the Great Expectations chicken. Sometimes the quotes don't work quite so well, but even in those cases the quotes are nice and the chickens are crazy looking. They are all so expressive, almost human. It makes me want to build a chicken coop in my back yard and keep a few laying hens....more
I really wanted to like this book. I tried. But I thought that Pater's writing style was a bit overblown, and he spent too much time describing thingsI really wanted to like this book. I tried. But I thought that Pater's writing style was a bit overblown, and he spent too much time describing things that would be better enjoyed and appreciated by going straight to the original rather than slogging through Pater's description. Turned off by the style, I also began to see flaws in Pater's perspective on art.
I always look for beauty in the different forms of art that I enjoy, so I thought that Pater in his worship of beauty and unity in art was going to be my soul mate. But there is more to art than beauty and unity and the synergies that come from combining form and meaning. Art can be crude and ugly and still be be meaningful as art, if it shows us a different way of looking at the world. And the aesthetic value of art is only part of the story. Art can also serve some social, moral, philosophical or historical purpose without losing its character as art and can even gain greater artistic merit by virtue of the combination of some additional purpose with the aesthetic. So while there is value in Pater's point of view, I came away from this book feeling that Pater is missing half the fun. ...more
I liked the basic idea of this book -- an exploration of loneliness mediated through an examination of lonely art and the lonely lives of the artists I liked the basic idea of this book -- an exploration of loneliness mediated through an examination of lonely art and the lonely lives of the artists behind it. We have all been lonely and most of us probably feel that we have experienced loneliness more often and more intensely than others. I know I feel that way, though objectively I have lived a life filled with close human connection. It's the same psychology that makes us all believe that we are better than average drivers.
But I did not connect with this book emotionally or intellectually. I did not feel that Laing had deep insights into the art, the artists or loneliness itself. It would not have to have been deep if it had been lyrical, but it wasn't that either. I would have liked it more if she had picked artists whose work I like better. Some of them were lonely too. Laing felt to me like a person who had gone through a rough patch in a strange big city where she had moved for a relationship that failed and then decided to write a book about it to make some money. But then she didn't even give enough of her personal experience to allow me to connect to her. B-....more
This is a brilliant book by a man who was both ahead of his time and a captive of the age in which he lived. Just as Lessing shows us the limits of paThis is a brilliant book by a man who was both ahead of his time and a captive of the age in which he lived. Just as Lessing shows us the limits of painting and poetry, their strengths and weaknesses as media of artistic expression, he also shows us the strengths and weaknesses of the Enlightenment -- rational, smart, analytical, discarding the prejudices of prior eras, but at the same time limited by an excessive faith in reason and unable to see its limits, sometimes harsh and lacking in humanism and heart, missing a sense of wonder, enchantment and spirituality. It would have been nice if he could have understood that art has value far beyond simple mimesis and portrayal of beauty, and if he could have had appreciation of cultures beyond Greco-Roman and Western European. But Lessing was no dope, and I think that if I could send him a time machine to transport him to the present day, he would quickly develop a broader perspective that would fit within his theories easily.
The most interesting part of this book for me was the discussion of how painting and sculpture, on the one hand, and poetry, on the other, have different capabilities and limitations that make each form of expression best at different types of artistic works. Because sculpture and painting give us a frozen moment they are stronger when they show a moment of anticipation to spur the imagination as to what comes next. They are also limited in space so they need to show people and things in proximity to one another. On the other hand, they provide a complete scene that can be apprehended all at once so there is an opportunity for the viewer to experience a sort of parallel processing that that makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. Poetry on the other hand has the characteristic of moving forward in serial form, so that its great strength is action over time and its greatest weakness in comparison to the visual arts is in providing descriptions of beauty, which it can only provide either in limited generality that leaves the reader to rely on his imagination or by finding ways to express beauty through action. Poetry also excels at presenting the unknown and invisible which in the visual arts can only be suggested by metaphor. And there is a lot more. This is good stuff that provides a lot of food for thought and that can be easily transposed into a more modern context where we now have movies, television and digital media, which each have their own strengths and limitations that shape the way that great artists use them in their creative process.
There were times when I disagreed with Lessing. For example he says that religious art is always inferior to secular art, because religious art is in service to the requirements of religion, but that misses the extra dimension that religion can also give to art, so more properly he should have talked about strengths and limits of religious vs secular art just as he did in comparing painting and poetry. And he should have considered how painting and sculpture are themselves different, how poetry is different from prose and how drama is different from all of them. But even if he was blind to some of these implications of his own thinking, he managed to get me going. I'll be thinking about his ideas for weeks, and they will come back to haunt me again the next time that I go to an art museum. It's hard to expect more than that from a book....more
The first thing to note about this book is that it is beautifully made -- thick, soft, substantial paper, lovely typeface and page layout and bright, The first thing to note about this book is that it is beautifully made -- thick, soft, substantial paper, lovely typeface and page layout and bright, brilliant, high fidelity reproductions of the art used for the illustrations. I was able to engage with the physical volume in the way that Findlay urges us to engage with art generally, with a deep appreciation that enhanced the reading experience.
The overall thesis of the book is that to appreciate art, we need to strip away the distractions -- first and foremost crowds, noise, cell phones and those horrible audio museum guides. And we need to give each work of art that is worth viewing at all enough time to speak to us, so that we can truly engage with it. So far so good. It is hard to disagree with the basic part of his thesis, but then he goes a giant step further, suggesting that we should disregard titles of works and informational labels, not talk about art while we are viewing it and put aside considerations of technique, intent and art history so that those things can be separated from the viewing experience. Here I think that he goes too far.
When we look at art we always necessarily do so in a context of when, where, why and how we are looking at the work, the history behind the work, the society we live in, the physical circumstance of the exhibition space, our moods, our company, and so on. Great art is enhanced by context, not obscured by it. It isn't possible to view art in the abstract divorced from context. It is better to be aware of context and to appreciate art within it than to try in vain to erase it. And while it might appeal to the untutored layman to be told that his like or dislike of a piece of art is just as valid as an expert's, I think that is a gross oversimplification. I agree that the best art in every form of artistic expression should have a visceral appeal that anyone can appreciate, but some art is specifically designed for a more tutored eye, sometimes in addition to having a basic appeal for a broad audience and sometimes exclusively for an elite. Elitism may be less admirable that universality, but that doesn't make art designed for an elite audience bad art. And I think that my knowledge of history, context and technique adds a dimension to my ability to engage with a work of art that I did not have before I took the time to read and learn. I do think that Findlay has valid points, and the next time I go to a museum or gallery I plan to try some of his suggestions for slow engagement, just as I ate my food slowly, savoring every bite for months after reading "A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich." And perhaps I will manage to retain Findlay's lesson and not go back to wolfing down my art as I regrettably have come to do again with my food....more
This book has an approach to intelligent discussion of music that is unlike anything that I have ever read. I love Murakami's novels, especially 1Q84,This book has an approach to intelligent discussion of music that is unlike anything that I have ever read. I love Murakami's novels, especially 1Q84, and I have always admired the way that music is woven into them from the basic musical rhythm of the writing (which he discusses here and which comes through even in translation), to the use of musical techniques and structures such as repetition, themes and counterthemes, and adjusting speed and volume of the narrative, to the way he makes reference to specific musical works that become a kind of soundtrack for his stories. It is clear from Murakami's novels that he is a great lover and connoisseur of music with a deep understanding and appreciation of the subject. So the idea of a book in which he discusses music with Seiji Ozawa seemed like a great concept, and it did not disappoint. There are places of great insight in this book in the discussions of how an orchestra director works together with his soloists and orchestra memebers and the orchestra director's relationship to the written music. And I was fascinated by the discussion of the musical philosophies of Bernstein, Karajan and Gould which were conveyed in a way that gave me an immediate greater understanding of their work. Interestingly, although Ozawa freely discusses his personal opinions and the people and events that have shaped his life and career, he himself still comes off a bit impersonally so that I felt at the end of the book that I did not know him as well as I would have liked. That's probably just a Japanese thing....more
After reading Ruskin's lectures on landscape art, I have been walking around for a week looking at every outdoors scene as painting -- how would I finAfter reading Ruskin's lectures on landscape art, I have been walking around for a week looking at every outdoors scene as painting -- how would I find the meaning in scene? where are the sharp outlines? where are the subtleties of shading? where are the elements of color? Any piece of reading that can have that kind of lingering impact on my thinking is something to be savored and appreciated. I can't wait to go to a museum and look at some paintings through my new Ruskin glasses. ...more
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